THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220648
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, Staff writer
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
He is the center of his universe, a cocky 19-year-old who checks his ego at no door, so naturally the middle of the diamond is where he belongs. And give or take a couple veterans on the whipped-puppy Pittsburgh Pirates, Jimmy Anderson might have the biggest big-league attitude on the field today in Calgary, Alberta when the Pirates play.
Because guess what: A year and three weeks after he brashly pronounced Pittsburgh ``lucky'' to get him in the ninth round of the draft, Anderson is going to pitch for the Pirates in an afternoon exhibition game against their Triple-A affiliate, the Calgary Cannons.
Anderson, the 6-foot-1 lefthander from Chesapeake's Western Branch High School, is one of three pitchers brought up from Class-A Augusta, Ga., who will don Pittsburgh uniforms and go to work for about three innings with big leaguers, such as they are, behind them.
He was flown to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to take in the Pirates-Giants matinee at Three Rivers Stadium, and whisked to Calgary on the team's luxury charter after the game.
Maybe he talked baseball with the game's best manager, Jim Leyland, and a few of Pittsburgh's recognizable names: Jay Bell, Don Slaught, Jim Gott. Maybe he tried to show Gott how he holds his slider. People who know Anderson wouldn't put it past him.
The thought of it all, after you shake your head once or twice to absorb it, drives home how fantastic Anderson's journey already has been from the fields of South Hampton Roads. And how special a talent he is - which is what he tried to tell Pittsburgh in the first place.
Anderson was The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star's hands-down choice as the player of the year in 1994, a kid who was stunned when he wasn't gone by the third round of the draft. He shook off that plunge to the ninth round and, never serious about a college scholarship, grabbed Pittsburgh's offer and ran off to dominate the Gulf Coast League for the Bradenton rookie club.
Anderson pitched with aplomb, which is to say he was flat outstanding. In 56 innings, he allowed 35 hits, 27 walks and struck out 66, going 5-1 with a 1.60 ERA.
The first half of his first full season in Augusta has been more of the same. He is 4-1 in 13 starts, with a 1.27 ERA that leads the South Atlantic League. In 71 innings, opponents have managed 45 hits and batted a meager .181 against him. He has allowed just one home run, walked 29 and struck out 70, and has earned further distinction as the only starter in the entire minor leagues to give up no more than three runs every time out.
Somehow, Anderson managed to avoid being named to the South Atlantic League all-star game last weekend, and we can only imagine how he took that insult. (Attempts to reach Anderson in Pittsburgh on Wednesday were unsuccessful.)
Augusta is loaded with pitching talent, and when voting took place Anderson was only sixth in the league in ERA, with another teammate lower than him. Suffice to say he fell through the cracks, a hurt that, if not forgotten, will surely be shoved aside in Anderson's brain when he fires his first fastball today, and if he does not return to Augusta.
The latter is a real possibility, in that Pittsburgh's brass has discussed a number of pending moves that could land Anderson in Lynchburg, with the Pirates' advanced Class-A club, as early as this week.
You'd like to believe Anderson, as full of bravado as he is, is a little pins-and-needles about all this. That even someone so self-confident could appreciate the fun and fantasy of his rapid success, of dressing and playing with big leaguers, even for an exhibition, a year out of high school. And of pitching for a promotion before the eyes of the Pirates' front office.
But from Anderson's profile, there is this sense that, standing alone in front of God, Leyland and everybody, he'll be among the least impressed people in Calgary today, that he doesn't expect to be awed and wouldn't admit it if he is.
He might be surprised. ILLUSTRATION: Color file photo by Paul Aiken, Staff
Jimmy Anderson...
by CNB